Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“When the fuck did you say that?”
She looks like she wants to peg the ball at my head again, but she holds back the urge—barely. “Last night. I came to get my backpack.”
The truth smacks into me when I stray my eyes to her bag on my floor. “Now your scent makes sense. I thought I was imagining it.”
Does that mean the other thing I imagined also wasn’t a dream?
“Did we… ah…” I do the ick hand gesture again.
McKayla reads it in the manner intended. After yanking my hand down, she tells my frat brothers their efforts are no longer needed.
Her sweet-as-pie accent and friendly grin have them leaving before the movie’s credits have even commenced rolling.
“We didn’t do anything,” she announces once we’re alone. “Except agree to continue with tutoring as scheduled so you’ll ace your next exam.”
I understand her eagerness. I’ve quoted a wish to pass the past few weeks, but my head isn’t in it. I can’t stop seeing my brother lying lifeless outside of my mother’s BMW the night he went home with her after my game. He knew she was drunk, yet he still got in the car with her.
I was first on the scene of their accident, but since I was the only person there, I couldn’t save Trenton’s leg like McKayla did the blonde’s late yesterday.
Only his life.
I hate the fog in my head when McKayla murmurs, “It was his choice, Cash.”
“It was. I just…” I scrub a hand across my tired eyes before saying, “I could have stopped him.”
“It was his choice,” McKayla repeats again, sterner this time. “Just like it is your choice to wallow in self-pity or to strap on your big-girl panties and put the adrenaline of last night to good use.” She thrusts the ball she’s been clutching the past ten minutes into my chest before saying, “If you don’t want to play ball, pick another profession. If you don’t want to ride a skateboard, buy a bike. But don’t bounce on your obligations. That just makes you look like a dick.”
“A flabby bit of tissue that’s controlled by an entirely separate entity?”
Our conversation seems nowhere near as serious when she says with a grin, “By multiple separate entries.” She taps my temple with her index finger before heading for the door. “If your flab is half as impressive as you make out, I’ll meet you down in my car in ten.”
Her quick pace slackens when I mutter, “Will ten minutes be long enough? This is a frat house. There are no big-girl panties around here.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” My laughter echoes down the hall when she murmurs, “Kamil’s pedi is better than mine.”
Confusion rings in my tone when I ask, “I thought we were studying today?”
McKayla’s eyes drift from a paintball arcade set up downtown to me. “We are. Just figured this would make it more fun.” After peeling out of the driver’s seat of her stinky car, she advises, “For each question you get right, you’ll be awarded one paintball.”
“And when I get them wrong?” I ask, aware she is all about praise and discipline.
Her smile competes with the bright afternoon sun. “I get your paintball.” She must hear my confusion because she spins to face me before walking backward. “We’re on opposing teams today.”
I love the competitiveness on her face, but it doesn’t alter the facts. “I’m not shooting at you with a paintball gun. Those fuckers hurt.”
McKayla loves my underhanded protectiveness, but her competitive side is far more flourishing. “One, why are you assuming you’ll be the only one with balls?”
I glide my hand down the front of myself, doubling her amused expression.
Her gag is super cute. “Two, you’d have to catch me to volley me with shrapnel. And three…” She waits and waits and waits before finalizing her reply, “I was taught if you fire a weapon, you shoot to kill.”
I swallow, suddenly conscious it isn’t competitiveness highlighting her features.
It is absolute assuredness.
“They have a no-head-shot rule here, right?” When she spins back around before somehow doubling the length of her strides like her legs are nowhere near as short as they are, I race to catch up with her. “Right?”
“I don’t give a fuck what you say.” My words are barely audible through the thick plastic face pane of my helmet. “Those questions were not standard mathematic questions. Even Einstein would have struggled with them.”
“Einstein flunked math.”
I grin at McKayla’s Darth Vader voice before shaking my head. “That’s an urban myth. People say it purely to make themselves feel better. He was as good at math as he was in science and physics.” When she peers at me from beneath her helmet, I tap my knuckles on the top. “You’re not the only one capable of researching subjects we’re not familiar with.”